Supermen Families: Offset Adventures

The Superman Family was prolific in having their tales chronicled, and not only alongside their most famous member. At least on Earth-One, as its members operated just as well individually as collectively like the Marvel Family.

In place of Lar Gand aka Mon-El who fought alongside Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th Century, there was Doctor Occult who had similar abilities fighting alongside Superman in the All-Star Squadron. Other legacy characters were Eltro Gand and Halk Kar who met his Superman on one adventure with Halk's tale paralleling Lar's first encounter with the Boy of Steel. While Halk eventually returned to native Thoron, Eltro would assume Lar's heroic career a thousand years in the future, and this would parallel Richard Occult's tales both in a similar costume to Gand's and in his famed trench coat which both wore.

And rather than the bizarre mis-adventures of "Superman's Pal", wherein Jimmy Olsen was transformed by all manner of strange occurrences including a female 5th dimensional imp while wearing his trademark green suits... there was the wacky tales of the Justice Society's mascot Johnny Thunder, who's every wish and whim was turned on its head by an imp from the Thunderbolt Dimension. Other tales with Superman assisting mirrored those of another redhaired reporter Tubby Watts and his pal Johnny Quick. And Jimmy's latter day tales, when he teamed up with the Golden Guardian and the Newsboy Legion on Earth-One would be mirrored by the original Earth-Two adventures of the first Guardian and the Legion's parents, themselves children at the time.

On Earth-Two, there wasn't a "Superman's Pal...Jimmy Olsen" or the "Daring New Adventures of Supergirl" and the like. Sure, they had their own red-haired cub reporter in Jimmy, their own Girl of Steel (Power Girl, whose only solo tales were in "Showcase" #97-99), and the Metropolis Marvel's one true love in Lois. Nevertheless, there were adventures on Kal-L's world that offset those on Kal-El's world, even if their participants weren't Halk Kar of Thoron, James Olsen of Metropolis, the Masked Wonder of Smallville or Kara Zor-L of Kandor.

The Adventures of Superboy were balanced out by those of Darrell Dane aka Doll Man. Darrell was a miniature version of Superman on Earth-Two as was Kal-El's cousin Don-El on Earth-One. While both Don-El as Captain of the Superman Emergency Squad and Kal-L the Masked Wonder only had a few adventures, Superboy and Doll Man each had hundreds of tales between them.

Then there was the Federal Man, aka Steve Carson. Steve like his counterpart Cory Renwald was a government agent. Both Cory and Clark had common step-parents with Jonathan and Martha Kent, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster being the creative "parents" of both Renward and Carson. On occasion, Steve even wore a spandex costume, thus at times mirroring on Earth-Two the later teen tales of the Superboy of Earth-One

Instead of the adventures of the younger adolescent Superboy in the 30th century, there were the tales Earth-Two's Wonder Woman had when travelling to the 30th century of her world. Earth-One Superman's alter ego Clark Kent was at times impersonated by the Kandorian leader of the Superman Lookalike Squad, Vol-Don. Vol-Don's Earth-Two counterpart Dave Clark aka Midnight had scores of tales mirroring thos of the "Private Life of (Earth-One's) Clark Kent".

Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl had mostly solo tales in Action Comics, then Adventure Comics, followed by her first self-titled series which led to her featured in Superman Family and concluding in a second self-titled series. Kara Zor-l aka Power Girl was featured alongside the Justice Society of America in stories chronicled in All-Star Comics followed by Adventure Comics and later Infinity Inc.

While Supergirl had a scant few adventures as a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Power Girl had a scan few sole adventures apart from the teams for which she was a member. Supergirl's early tales, where she was pals for with Lena (Luthor) Thorul were offset by the solo adventures of Lena's cosmic twin Liberty Belle aka Libby Lawrence that proceeded Power Girl's first appearance

Then there was that one true love, Lois Lane, who had golden age adventures in the backpages of Superman starting in issue #29 through #42, before graduating into a co-star in the Mr. and Mrs. Superman tales in a few issues of "Action Comics" and "Superman" before their continuing series featured in Superman Family #195-222.

Although not nearly the volume of cases that her Earth-One counterpart had in "Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane" #1-137, this would be compensated by the adventures of a contemporary of Earth-Two's Lois in Jane Arden, also a news reporter. She had scores of tales in Quality Comics. Jane Arden's Earth-One counterpart Meg Tempest was always a background character in Lois and her friends adventures.